


not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

by princegrantaire



Series: dulce et decorum [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: 1920s, Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Prohibition Era, Bisexual Male Character, F/M, Gay Male Character, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-World War I, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22053505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princegrantaire/pseuds/princegrantaire
Summary: “Wasn’t this place an actual theatre a couple of years back?” Silver whispers, conspiratorially close.A couple of years backBruce was busy being shot at in the trenches, Amusement Mile a little more than a distant memory from a half-lived childhood.(The war is long over. Bruce finds himself drifting until he meets The Joker. Or, a 1920's AU.)
Relationships: Joker (DCU)/Bruce Wayne, Silver St. Cloud/Bruce Wayne
Series: dulce et decorum [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1587337
Comments: 9
Kudos: 51





	not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

**Author's Note:**

> FIRST THINGS FIRST: a couple of months ago (longer than i'd care to admit), @slaapkat and i came up with a silent film AU based entirely around hal jordan/sinestro (as big name actors) but as the universe grew, batjokes got added to it and this right here is, well, an attempt at an introduction to one of our favourite concepts. you can find art & other info about this AU on my tumblr right here https://ufonaut.tumblr.com/tagged/silent%20film%20au
> 
> there's not much context required, given that this is meant to be an intro, but, all the same: this takes place around 1922 (post-war prosperity, no great depression yet, other than bruce's anyway, etc), most of the male cast was in the war and bruce escaped with no physical injuries whereas joker got caught in a gas attack and has a bad case of amnesia. silver's a flapper! and maybe a golfer, like jordan in the great gatsby! period typical attitudes & consequences re being gay may be found here but no real warnings apply
> 
> hope you enjoy! couldn't have done this without @slaapkat and @permaclown

> What candles may be held to speed them all?  
>  Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes  
> Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.  
>  The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;  
> Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,  
> And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.  
>   
> 
> 
> \- _Anthems for Doomed Youth_ , Wilfred Owen

* * *

Silver St. Cloud glimmers in the dim light of the Monarch Theatre. The music and the girls on stage all fade as she takes a drag off her cigarette and Bruce can’t tear his eyes away. He’d proposed once and sometimes, at just the right angle, he understands.

Few things are familiar after the war.

Bruce doesn’t know what he’d expected. Silver is strikingly beautiful, as she’s always been, but the sight doesn’t leave Bruce breathless nowadays. He can’t remember what it’d felt like, back then, and the wound never hurts any less. It’s all sort of blurred, a vision of his life from the wrong side of the window. The collection of things he’d once been remains ill-fitting.

The theatre, the opera, the music hall, the glitzy parties Silver’s friends throw every other night and aimless interludes in his own home are always endured but never enjoyed. The Elizabeth Arkham Military Hospital is where Bruce finds it necessary to spend his days. Harvey would know what it’s like, he thinks -- _hopes_ \-- every time, but Harv’s not quite himself either. They never talk about the burns and Bruce pretends there’s nothing like survivor’s guilt wrapped tight around his neck.

If there are nights when it’s hard to believe his best friend’s not hanging on the old barbed wire, then they’re Bruce’s alone to deal with. After a fashion, he’s still got Harvey.

The clapping shocks him out of it. Bruce joins in, a moment too late. The girls must’ve finished their only _lightly_ screeched rendition of another Irving Berlin classic. He’s still not sure why Silver had gone for vaudeville, let alone vaudeville on Gotham’s less-than-aptly-named Amusement Mile and Bruce finds himself enjoying her smiles much more than the show.

“Wasn’t this place an actual theatre a couple of years back?” Silver whispers, conspiratorially close.

_A couple of years back_ Bruce was busy being shot at in the trenches, Amusement Mile a little more than a distant memory from a half-lived childhood. Even now, it looks nothing like what he’d remembered from the singular time the Waynes had ventured this far, not too long before another night that’s come to dictate Bruce’s life. If the rest of the city has sort of come into its own after the war, Amusement Mile has merely sunk deeper into the harbour. It’s neither his nor Silver’s style to be caught dead in this part of town, he’ll say that much.

“I don’t know,” Bruce confesses and presses a kiss to Silver’s cheek for good measure.

Maybe it’s a last-ditch effort.

Silver’s held his hand through every sleepless night, every nightmare. In her own way, she’d understood there’d been no glory. It’s more than Bruce could ask for. So, they go out, night after night, and it’s never the easy laughter of days gone by but Bruce wants to try, for her, for what’s left of himself.

Both the Monarch Theatre and its clientele reek of cheap cigarettes and even cheaper cologne. Bruce had felt a sort of distant pity for the girls up on stage, persistently off-key and engaging in something that might have passed for choreography had the lights been dimmer, but at least they’d gotten applause and lots of it, wolf-whistles at every turn. The next act, as the curtains part once more, is greeted by a kind of collective groan.

It’s certainly quite a sight.

The spotlight does him few favours as the man now on stage trembles faintly under its glare, leaning heavily on a cane that seems unlikely to be part of his act. He blinks a couple of times and Bruce can’t tell what colour his eyes are at a distance but they’re wide, as if he’s more than a little surprised that he’s ended up here, face-to-face with the world.

“Now, now, folks, you and I both know this ain’t the follies but our show’s gotta have a little variety too,” he starts, Gotham accent thicker than Bruce’s ever had the honour of hearing. Somehow, it strikes him as odd that the words never stumble over each other. Enough practice with a reception this icy, maybe. “I’m the Joker, as those gettin’ ready to throw me outta here know, and I’ll be your host for the next half hour.”

The Joker, as he’s dubbed himself, is clearly taller than intended and horrifically skinny in an all-purple suit that’s more than a couple of sizes too big. He’s got a sharp, not unkind face that’s been well and thoroughly covered in white greasepaint, blue triangles painted over his eyes and two red circles on his cheeks. He gestures wildly when he speaks, sways as he moves and is, against all odds, irreparably entertaining to see in action.

Most of all, he’s got nothing of the tinsel delight of acts with no purpose, humiliatingly genuine in every misstep and wrong word.

Bruce sits there, beaming, and listens and watches and hopes it lasts.

“I like to think life’s a lot like a vaudeville show. You think the next act’s gonna be a little better and it never is!” Joker says, waits through another agonising moment of silence.

And Bruce is-- laughing, louder than he’d meant to, hard enough to tear up. Laughing and laughing until he’s gasping through it and he knows Silver’s looking at him, maybe the rest of the unflinching audience too, but he can’t help it, not when it’s the first time in-- so long, so much longer than he’d ever admit to. Even after the Joker’s bid a meek _goodbye and good night_ , Bruce’s still grinning. It occurs to him, then and there, that not a single person had as much as smiled during the whole act.

“You really liked him, huh?”

Silver’s got an amused glint in her eyes, a fondness that warms Bruce up from the inside. He nods, flushing a little.

“ _Brucie_ , you should go up to his dressing room! Give ‘im these,” and she’s handing him the bouquet Bruce himself had gotten her at the start of the evening, practically pushing him out of his seat. Bruce smiles, like he can’t get enough of it now that he’s remembered how, and sort of stands there, floundering. It’s not--

It’s not an _entirely_ terrible idea.

“Won’t it be weird? Giving a fella flowers an’ all that?” Bruce says, too aware that he’s stalling. Truth be told, he’d quite like to do it, can’t let a moment that’s bigger than he could ever contain go unnoticed.

“No! He’s in showbiz, he’ll love it,” Silver says and neither mentions that what the Joker had done could hardly be categorised as _showbiz_.

Bruce looks between the bouquet and one Silver St. Cloud, still gazing up at him expectantly, and goes towards what he hopes is the stage door. Something’s come loose in him, a sort of ease Silver must’ve noticed, must be trying to prolong as much as she can.

\---

“Look, pal, don’t know what you’ve heard but the girls don’t do private shows no more,” repeats the guy at the door -- Digger, a dancer passing by had called him -- for what must be the fourth time since Bruce’s tried to talk his way backstage. “We just ain’t that kinda establishment, y’see,” he adds, shaking his head.

“I don’t _want_ a private show,” Bruce insists. “I’ve just got flowers for someone, that’s all.”

“Yeah? You and every other guy in Gotham. Miss Kyle’s got enough flowers.”

Bruce sighs, risks a glance back towards Silver.

“No, they’re for, uh, the Joker, I guess,” he admits, sheepish.

With that, Digger pulls a face and mumbles something about _being one of ‘em_ , not that Bruce’s got the courage to ask what that’s supposed to mean, and lets him through. As a dozen murmurs fade away and the door slams shut behind him, Bruce becomes increasingly aware of the distinct sound of clicking heels on cement. It’s something of a madhouse, scenery and girls alike flying from all directions, impossible to get a word in through the frenzied shrieks and giggles.

So, Bruce pushes on, ends up in front of the one dressing room that’s got its door closed and knocks, carefully cradling his bouquet. He could go back.

He _should_ go back.

Maybe, Bruce thinks -- desperate with hope, the Joker’s not even in. He can just-- leave the bouquet, scribble a quick _thank you_ note and go back to his night out with Silver, sufficiently embarrassed for the evening. They’d laugh about it later, his good spirits would hold and a tentative normalcy would reign once again.

As if he’s ever been that lucky.

In an act of courage so great it might be stupidity, Bruce, who’s only half convinced of his deductive reasoning, tries the door and…walks in.

Just like that.

For a split-second, he’s startled, understands some small measure of Joker’s shock up on stage, the unintended consequences of passing through the looking glass.

The Joker’s dressing room is an exceedingly cramped affair, overwhelmed with the scent of dirt-cheap makeup and stale with the lack of windows, accompanied by about a dozen shirts in various states of distress piled up high on a tiny sofa that still manages to take up too much of the room. The rest, as far as Bruce can tell, is a burst of seemingly unrelated posters, flyers and newspaper clippings -- all stuck to every available surface, no discernible pattern, no discernible reason either -- at the centre of which sits the Joker himself, taking off his makeup at a vanity table that might’ve never seen better days.

The mirror is cracked in places, smudged in others. It’s not why Bruce’s stopped in his tracks nor why his breathing’s turned shallow. The Joker’s face--

He’s pale even lacking in greasepaint, drawn and tired and-- _burned_. It’s all over his right side, bits and pieces that look like they’d scabbed over wrong, catching on an ear, climbing up to his forehead, settling under one eye and then, where what must’ve been mustard gas had dug in deeper, more warped flesh along his neck as his shirt rests half-unbuttoned. It’s not bad. It’s not _Harvey_.

Bruce screams. Against all reason, he _screams_ , a singular rush of agony among the backstage chaos. The door’s fallen closed behind him.

All at once, something smacks against his face then clatters to the floor. “Ow,” Bruce mumbles and glances at the cane that’s just hit its target. Somehow, he’s not dropped the flowers. The Joker’s turned around by now and the two of them merely stare at one another -- a miniature standstill at opposite sides of an even smaller room.

“I’m _so_ sorry,” Joker gasps just as Bruce starts on his own apology.

They stop simultaneously and it’s another couple stutters before Bruce has the presence of mind to grab the cane and take the necessary steps to hand it back. Up close, the Joker’s eyes are green and no less surprised as he accepts his cane. Bruce smiles, takes in the sweat-soaked brown hair in the absence of the hat he’d worn on stage, the white flecks of paint still tracing the contours of a sharp nose. He makes a point of _looking_ , understands the immensity of it.

“I really am sorry,” Bruce says, more than a little awkward. His face sort of aches and he looks away as he clears his throat, apologetic. “I didn’t mean--” He thrusts the flowers at the Joker, even tries for a smile, “I brought you these! I, um, really enjoyed your act.”

“ _Oh_.”

The Joker freezes momentarily, eyes darting to the door, as if an escape from his own dressing room is in order. He sits up, and he’s perplexingly got an inch or two on Bruce, then back down again, as if under the abrupt realisation that he’s not in possession of a vase for the flowers. “Thanks?” he finally says, holding the bouquet at some distance, his voice’s gone a little higher than necessary. He flails, directionless, and it’s easy to stop on his scorched palms, another bout of scabbed skin under the gloves he’d worn on stage.

Something of great importance is unravelling before Bruce’s very eyes.

There’s a private pleasure to it.

Bruce has unravelled often and publicly, he understands-- he _thinks_ he understands and it seems quite vital that he’s found himself here.

He wants to ask.

“You were great,” is what he manages instead. “Honestly, just the cat’s pyjamas. I haven’t had that much fun since-- since before the war.”

“I saw you in the audience,” the Joker admits and laughs. His real laugh is a faint, nervous thing and he’s fiddling with the flowers, jittery like some of the men Bruce’s noticed in the hospital, but his shoulders slump, at ease for the first time that evening.

It’s only then Bruce spots a stained pillow and ratty blanket spread out underneath the mound of shirts on the small sofa. The thought that Joker might _live_ in his suffocating dressing room is both sudden and unwelcome, as if he’s stumbled over yet another unintended catastrophe. He’s intruding, that much seems certain. “My name’s Bruce, by the way,” he says anyway, wisely doesn’t tag on the prerequisite of _Wayne_.

“I’m-- John Doe.” The Joker sort of cringes, reaches out to shake Bruce’s hand then thinks better of it, as if he’s forgotten himself in the movement. “I mean, that’s what everyone calls me,” he adds, as if that clears up anything at all.

Bruce lingers on that thought, takes in the burns, the scar just above his lips, the cane. He wonders whether he’s missing some vital piece of the puzzle.

“What do you wanna be called?”

And _John Doe_ takes a moment, as if he’s never had the choice before. Something precarious stretches between them. “I like Joker,” he says, eventually.

Bruce, too, likes Joker.

They share a smile and there’s a _warmth_ inside Bruce, a touch more familiariaty than he’d prefer.

“Listen, my gal’s still waiting outside but would you be up for lunch tomorrow? My treat!” Bruce doesn’t, in all honesty, know _why_ he says it. It’s taken any remaining stockpile of courage. “There’s also a new Thaal Sinestro picture I’ve been meaning to see, if that’s your thing.”

If Joker’s taken aback, he doesn’t quite show it. His smile is still there, kind, untouched by whatever he’d suffered through. “I’ve never been to a picture,” he says and it’s not quite a _no_ , as if he knows what Bruce is trying to make up for.

“I’ll pick you up at noon?”

And Bruce certainly _pretends_ that sounds as smooth as he imagines. It will, in all future retellings aimed at Miss St. Cloud.

Joker nods, just once, the flowers clutched tight to his chest.

\---

They’re sitting out on the manor’s grounds, lounging after a more than half-unfinished game of early morning golf. Bruce is hopeless at it and Silver’s been engaging in a valiant attempt to teach him, most of which had involved a scandalous amount of time spent with her arms wrapped around him, all of which had left the two of them giggling.

Last night’s ease _has_ remained, against all odds. Bruce doesn’t quite know what to do with it, doesn’t want to know what latent tendencies it speaks of either. Last time he’s been allowed this measure of lightness had been right after the war -- a juvenile dalliance with a luchador from Santa Prisca, never to be repeated. There had been a lot of tears. A lot of begging, too, once Alfred had found out. He’d been careless, Bruce can’t afford _careless_. Silver’s always been safe.

Bruce loves her in every way that matters.

“Oh, Alfie, aren’t you just the bee’s knees!” Silver exclaims as their ever-stalwart butler emerges from within the manor, carrying a tray of refreshments.

Alfred, who despises being called _Alfie_ , shoots Bruce a look that Bruce can only shrug at, grinning rather terribly.

It’s a nice morning, it can’t be helped that he’s in high spirits.

“Are you planning on joining us for lunch, miss?” Alfred asks, awfully polite.

“Brucie! Didn’t you tell Alfie about your new friend?” and Silver’s abruptly clinging to Bruce’s arm like they’re at one of her parties. It helps. An unruly spike of fear is promptly ignored.

“Guess I forgot,” Bruce admits, leaning on Silver. She’s a vision in white, brighter than the sun.

“Well, he’s just _darling_. Bruce and I are meeting him for lunch at _Peregrinators Club_.” Silver’s dazzling smile rarely leaves room for questions and accusations. Bruce is grateful, even if lunch includes one extra guest. Joker would like Silver, he thinks.

It’s mostly hope.

\---

Later, in the car, with Silver driving and the city rushing by, Bruce finds it impossible to tell _why_ he’d insisted on lunch. He and Silver are unlikely to frequent the Monarch Theatre. It had been an awkward slip-up, sure, he’d been startled, he’d-- thought of Harvey. The bouquet could’ve been enough of an apology.

But no, lunch had seemed _necessary_.

Alfred would call it falling back into old patterns, he’s certain.

“Want me to pick you up afterwards, baby-grand?” Silver asks, glancing over at Bruce, and _that’s_ odd, her voice gone all soft like it’s the middle of the night and Bruce’s gone back to four years ago again.

“You’re not coming?”

“I’m afraid Vicki needs my expertise for tomorrow night’s ball,” Silver laughs, tinkling bells as always. As far as Bruce knows, Vicki Vale hasn’t, in fact, telephoned in recent memory. He’s grateful, faintly understood as the favour is.

Silver drops him in front of the theatre and it’s something else in daylight -- the gargantuan skeleton of what had surely once been, for lack of a better word, _majestic_. The windows up high are boarded up and the shimmer of glittering lights no longer distracts and enchants. It’s a building that’s been devoured by time, not unlike the rest of Amusement Mile, not unlike Bruce himself either.

The double doors burst open about a minute after Silver leaves, as if someone’s been waiting in the wings for her inevitable departure. The Joker comes running out, as best he can with a persistent limp, though Bruce gets the distinct impression there would’ve been a precarious balance to his lanky form regardless of what the war might have had in store for him.

It _had_ been the war, hadn’t it?

Joker, too, looks a little worse for wear in the light of day. He’s in full costume and makeup though, top hat just slightly askew. It’s quite impossible to picture a place so thoroughly steeped in Gotham’s nightlife doing matinees.

“Bruce!” Joker calls out, sounding just about as excited as Bruce himself feels -- which is, in the interest of clarity, _very_. “You made it.”

He hadn’t thought he would either. He’s built a life from the rubble of that personal apocalypse, there’s no reason to tear it down now. It feels a little selfish to lament what could have never been when so many have lost so much.

“Yeah, it’s-- it’s great to see you,” Bruce says and very carefully _doesn’t_ go for a handshake.

That’d be a smidge too awkward even for him.

Instead, the two of them merely stand there for the longest time, silent in the afternoon sun. Joker’s beaming wide, like Bruce had at that first sight and still does now, and he’s-- there’s no right word for what he is. It’s easy to forget that expanse of burned skin and Bruce finds he doesn’t want to. He can’t look away, only momentarily offended by a height difference that would surely be more stark should Joker ever choose to stand up straight. It can’t be more than the assumed inch or two. Bruce sort of shakes his head.

“Anywhere in particular you’d like to go?” He’s found his voice at last.

Joker, for his part, hums, sort of sways back and forth on his cane, fidgety as ever. “There’s a café on the corner?”

And Bruce, who would be willing to lunch anywhere if it means making up for a misplaced scream, simply follows where Joker leads. It really _is_ just around the corner; the kind of quaint little place he wouldn’t have given a second glance on any other day. It’s not just any other day.

“So, I asked some of the girls at the theatre about that picture you mentioned,” Joker says as they sit down, “Helena says it’s somethin’ else. Apparently that Sinestro fella is all hotsy-totsy. _Inner Vice_ , right?” He doesn’t wait for Bruce to confirm. “ _We_ tried showin’ pictures for a bit but it was the same stuff they’ve got down at the nickelodeons and it’s not like the theatre’s doin’ any better than ‘em. Bet you go to all movie palaces!”

Bruce sort of flushes, he and Silver _had_ seen all of Thaal Sinestro’s pictures at the Orpheum in the Diamond District. _I could take you to a picture_ is kept unsaid, hidden behind a smile.

Instead, Bruce lets Joker ramble to his heart’s content, excited to hear about the going-ons at the theatre, the sordid little dramas he’s got little involvement in but is aware of nevertheless.

The Joker isn’t, as Bruce finds out, all that different from _just_ Joker. He’s as animated as ever, wild gestures, jittery like he can’t allow himself to stand still. His Gotham accent, placing him wholly in the Narrows, remains of note. It’s not been dulled with time and travel, with the wartime months.

“Where were you stationed?” Bruce finds himself asking, so curious he’s accidentally interrupted a lively anecdote about the time one of the dancers had brought a cat along.

He means to apologise, he really does, but Joker’s fallen silent, frowning a little at the miniscule pastry he’s ordered, untouched whereas Bruce has finished both the entirety of his lunch and a couple of drinks.

“In the war?” Joker’s voice is so quiet. Maybe Bruce’s misread, maybe they’re not mustard gas burns at all. Tragedies happen, he knows better than most. A childhood bout of polio could’ve accounted for the leg, not the bullets he’d been picturing. He’d been _wrong_ , he must’ve been. “I don’t know.”

_That_ throws Bruce right off.

“You don’t know?” he asks and clings tighter to that planned apology.

“I woke up in a field hospital,” Joker starts, hesitant, like he thinks Bruce _deserves_ to know, “I remember-- it itched really bad, all over, and I couldn’t really breathe. Then, I woke up again in Arkham, got out about two years ago,” he laughs, a strangled little thing, shaking his head. “So, no, I don’t know. They never found any identification on me, no one came looking or anythin’.”

At a prolonged glance, Joker’s got a peculiar little habit of messing with his ring finger when put on the spot. Certain literary classics have taught Bruce the inherent meaning of such gestures but there’s no clue to be found here, nothing that might indicate anything ever rested there.

Bruce remembers the red, inflamed tint Harvey’s skin had taken right after, the yellowing blisters that had followed the itching. A matter of minutes. Joker had been lucky, as far as luck extended in the war to end all wars.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce whispers, knowing too well how much _he_ despises the sentiment.

“Well, I’m here now and a hunk’s buying me lunch so it can’t be all bad, can it?” Joker’s smile is a little half-hearted, tense, but it reaches his eyes as he casually takes a sip from Bruce’s lemonade. It’s a welcome change. “You made it out okay, didntcha?” he adds a moment later.

“Can’t complain.” Something pushes him on, a need to repay the honesty he’s been offered. “My best friend got caught in mustard gas, too. It’s-- _bad_. They might keep him in there. In Arkham, I mean.”

There it is, all of Bruce’s cards on the table. Joker may draw his own assumptions.

“Nurses ain’t too bad.”

“Bet they were all sweet on you.” And Bruce’s laughing and something’s eased between them again, like that’s all it takes, no feigned interest. He wants it to last, the same ardent desperation he’d been gripped by last night.

“You’d be surprised,” Joker says, sounding a little surprised himself. “No, I’m jokin’, it was just this one nurse, uh, something Quinzel. I think she figured I’m not--” He coughs, scratches at his face then winces at a gloved hand that comes away covered in greasepaint. Joker’s silent once more and he’s yet to eat his lunch, though he’s doing a fantastic job of stabbing at it with a bony finger.

A faint inkling of the truth has rendered Bruce’s heart unmanageable for the moment. “Joker--”

“Bruce, listen, this was just swell but I should really start gettin’ back,” he interrupts, hurried and unsmiling, “Maybe I’ll catch you after the show tonight?”

There’s little to do but promise.

\---

Evenings at the Majestic Theatre become something of a permanent fixture. They’re there night after night, Bruce and Silver, front row, taking in the sights. None of the acts are in danger of making it to Broadway but it’s light, cheap fun that neither had ever had a taste for before. Silver’s accommodating or, otherwise, finds her own delight in the practice. They don’t quite discuss it, as if it might upset some precarious sense of peace.

Bruce still spends sleepless nights with Silver in his arms and he still visits Harvey and not much has changed but the world seems a little brighter on the days he gets to bring Joker flowers and spend a half hour in his dressing room, laughing about nothing in particular.

It’s nice.

They all deserve _nice_.

Silver is warm and nearly bare underneath Bruce, her lacy chemise slipping off a shoulder as they trade heated kisses back and forth. That, too, is nice. More than nice, really. They’d ended up back at the place Silver keeps in the city, a somewhat sizeable apartment with a mesmerising view of Old Gotham, after another night out at the Majestic.

One thing led to another and it’d-- been a while, admittedly, though Bruce can’t rightly tell why.

It’s something of a delicate balancing act, Bruce propped up on his elbows as he kisses at Silver’s neck, unwilling to crush her with his, well, rather _husky_ constitution. He’s long lost his undershirt and they’re on the same page here, pressed tight and close. It’s only once the kisses trail lower that Silver’s fingers card through his hair, just firm enough to provoke a questioning noise.

“Alfred’s worried about you,” Silver says and Bruce groans a little, rests his head on her chest for the duration of the long moment it takes him to convince himself to sit up, faintly ruffled.

He’d been _content_ \-- familiarity stretching into reality, evidently not meant to last.

“Silver--”

“I know, I’m sorry,” and Silver’s sitting up too, reaching to caress Bruce’s face, “He just thinks that you’ve been spending too much time with Joker, that’s all. I don’t know.” The moonlight’s taken a melancholy shade and Silver’s touches are too gentle, feather-light affection served up with reluctance. If it’s pity, Bruce doesn’t think he could bear it.

Distantly, Bruce can hear his breathing turn a little shallow.

“He thinks that? Or… _you_ do?” A sort of tension settles heavy in the pit of his stomach. Bruce knows how to push through the hurt, knows about contradictions and how he can’t have it all. He can’t lose Silver.

“I just want you to be happy,” Silver whispers. “I don’t mind if you’re--”

“I’m not!” But he does appreciate the reassurance, more than he can say. “I’m not,” Bruce repeats, quieter.

It’s too much like the night Alfred had found out and quite nothing like it. Silver hasn’t, miraculously, recommended a psychiatrist. He rests his forehead against hers, a stuttering pause, then rolls over so he’s laying against Silver. “I’m taking Joker to a picture on Wednesday,” he finds himself saying, all too aware he’s not helping his case, suddenly caught in the need to stand there, open and vulnerable, and know that Silver’s seen every part of him.

Every part that matters.

\---

As it turns out, _wanting_ to take Joker to a picture and _actually_ taking Joker to a picture are, in fact, two completely different matters.

“You can’t keep payin’ for everything every freakin’ time we go out,” he says, as if it’s a perfectly logical argument. Bruce both can and, if not acted upon, will. There’s a distinct pleasure in their rare outings, a flavor of which he wouldn’t readily deny himself.

The Joker sits at his vanity table, methodically wiping away last remnants of greasepaint. His skin is sensitive, he’s told Bruce, and can only withstand so many hours under so many layers of makeup. An unspoken rule has passed between them -- Bruce’s made himself right at home on the beat-up sofa pressed up against the wall, carefully averting his eyes.

He understands the trust he’s been handed here, holds onto it carefully.

“Joker,” Bruce starts, downright solem, “You work very hard --” Joker snorts at that, barely contained laughter, “-- and I think you deserve to go to a movie palace. _I_ deserve to accompany you to a movie palace! Won’t you give me that honour?”

“Fine, fine,” Joker agrees, laughing. He’s turned around by now, watching Bruce carefully, head tilted in a sort of feline curiosity.

It’s hard to look away. The burns don’t look too bad, just now, still partially hidden by dustings of greasepaint but Bruce often wonders how far it spreads, what those rare glimpses of an unbuttoned shirt collar lead to. For his trouble, Bruce gets a glove chucked at his face and, true to himself, yelps in response. “What’s that for?” he chokes out, mouth a little dry.

“Pick me up at four?” Joker says, instead, green eyes twinkling with amusement.

“Swell.” Bruce tips a non-existent hat, perhaps emboldened by the echoes of the stage, and takes that as his cue. Well, he _almost_ does. “Good night,” he adds, though he’s never said it before, and lingers awkwardly. No missing piece occurs to him.

It’s then Joker stands up, abruptly and absurdly close. There’s a vague chemical smell to him, bleach and cheap makeup, and Bruce’s treacherous hand has decided to rest heavy on his shoulder, awkwardly unmoving. Here, in the warm light of dressing room, Bruce _wants_. He leans forward, taking in each other’s air, and--

And the moment holds tight, breathless.

And, all at once, Joker ducks, pulls back, clumsy and flushed. “I-- I’ll see you tomorrow,” he whispers.

The world doesn’t collapse, which strikes Bruce as only slightly odd. He wants to apologise, wisely doesn’t, and bids Joker a quiet goodbye. It’s not a _no_ , he thinks he’s learned that much since they’ve met, but the knowledge does very little to assuage a heart threatening to burst out of his chest.

He’d been on the very precipice of disaster.

\---

Bruce is late.

In the right light, _late_ is miles above _not coming_. He’s not so sure. Joker, when Bruce does pull up in front of the Majestic Theatre just as it’s pushing a quarter past five, looks thoroughly rained on. Makeup streaks across his sharp features like watercolour -- the big impressionist masterpieces Bruce had once seen in Europe, and the distinct air of having somehow melted in the meantime is hard to escape.

Eaten alive by guilt, Bruce finds there’s little to do but wait. He pushes the car door open, wordless, and watches Joker clamber inside, rubbing at his knee as he sits down, thumbing at his cane.

“They’re showing _The Green Lantern_ in about half an hour,” Bruce says, quiet, treading on thin ice.

Joker nods.

Greasepaint smudges like blood and the red circles once painted high up on Joker’s cheeks, a marionette smile, give way to what Bruce remembers best from the trenches. The stains across young and haggard faces, the _stench_ of death. There’s none of the latter here. Bruce starts up the car, stares straight ahead with the kind of determination that’s long been drilled into him. They’ll get to the movie palace, live through however long the misadventures of the _Green Lantern_ might last and then they’ll go their merry ways, content in the knowledge that Bruce had accomplished his mission.

And last night-- never happened, if Joker doesn’t want it to.

“I’m sorry,” he says. There it is, out in the open. He watches Joker scrub a hand across his face and frown down at an ex-white glove, taking a shuddering breath that sounds a little too wet for Bruce’s taste. “About last night,” he adds, just in case.

“I’m not.” Joker chews at his lip, thoughtful, words a little shaky and no less honest. For the finishing blow, he leaves it at that.

The Orpheum Movie Palace is half-deserted in the late afternoon light, surrounded on all sides by the Diamond District. Joker looks awestruck, staring out the car window long after they’ve stopped, as if he doesn’t quite have the guts to experience it for himself. Bruce touches his shoulder, pretends he doesn’t feel Joker flinch, and nods towards the entrance.

It really _is_ a palace, opulent and luxurious. Bruce, too, feels a touch of awe among the routine -- it’s hard not to, with Joker trailing behind him, hesitant as they pass through a gilded archway and Bruce pays for their tickets. He’s glad to skip the chit-chat, ushering Joker away from the couple of stray, curious looks and up a grand staircase just as the picture’s about to start. They settle in the back row, among a sparse audience that’s mostly migrated towards the front.

Here, together, in the dark, Bruce hears the picture and sees little beyond the play of shadow and light on Joker’s face. His doe-eyes have gone even wider.

Bruce smiles and smiles and feels fond enough to drown in it, thinks _it’s now or never_ as Joker meets his gaze with a questioning look. Bruce leans forward, close like the other night, his hand now resting just above Joker’s knee, and kisses him.

It’s just a soft press of chapped lips; the smell of greasepaint, a whiff of stale cologne, clumsy with the immensity of it. It’s a _kiss_.

For the longest time, neither pulls back.

Joker does, eventually, when Bruce opens his mouth against his, and he murmurs something quick and sheepish about not knowing how, flushed in the glow of the _Green Lantern_ on screen. No one’s looking, they can have this moment for themselves. Bruce doesn’t think of institutions and past mistakes and fortunes hanging in the balance. He doesn’t think of Silver or the war, either.

It’s Joker who reaches out and cups Bruce’s cheek -- gentle, hesitant, _real_.

**Author's Note:**

> \- digger is, of course, our ol pal captain boomerang  
> \- LUCHADOR FROM SANTA PRISCA! bruce/bane reigns, as always  
> \- inner vice & the green lantern are both films to be found in @slaapkat's upcoming fic. everything's coming up sinestro, babey!  
> \- movie palaces were a real thing and they were wonderful. on that topic, we should bring back calling films 'pictures'  
> \- i love war poems. please read siegfried sassoon's "suicide in the trenches"
> 
> hope you enjoyed! talk to me @ufonaut on tumblr


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